TMSO Special（10/7）

This concert is over. Date: Sat. 7. October 2023 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Suntory Hall Venue Info Seat

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Artists

Kazushi ONO, Conductor
Mao FUJITA, Piano

Profile

Kazushi ONO (Music Director)

Kazushi Ono is the definitive musical citizen of the world, having been born in Tokyo, studied in Munich and forged his early career in Zagreb, Karlsruhe and Tokyo. This variety of influences has shaped an inquiring and profound musical intellect and an ability to communicate meaning across languages and cultures, leading to longstanding relationships around the world.
Ono trained in Europe under Wolfgang Sawallisch and came to public attention winning first prize in the 1987 Toscanini Competition. Since his first appointment at Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1992 he has held continuous positions, including at Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, Karlsruhe Opera, La Monnaie, Opéra National de Lyon, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and currently, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, New National Theatre Tokyo and Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra.
A favourite of orchestral players, he has lasting friendships with orchestras around the world and regularly guest conducts groups such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
His passion and curiosity for repertoire takes him in different directions – to the standard classics but also to new music. He often commissions works and has collaborated several times with Mark-Anthony Turnage, including on Silent Cities, Hibiki (which won a Royal Philharmonic Society award) and Time Flies, which was originally commissioned for the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad. Recent commissions at NNTT include Asters by Akira Nishimura and Dai Fujikura’s A Dream of Armageddon. His programming there also includes Baroque, 20th-century and bel canto masterpieces.
In Europe he conducted the world premieres of Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjyo in Aix-en-Provence, Arnulf Hermann’s Der Mieter at Oper Frankfurt and Kaija Saariaho’s Emilie at Opéra de Lyon, as well as new productions of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole and L’Enfant et les sortilèges at Glyndebourne and Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher at Opéra de Lyon. He has worked closely with boundary-breaking directors such as Dmitri Tcherniakov, Romeo Castellucci, Pierre Audi, William Kentridge and Mariusz Treliński
Ono is a vocal advocate for the role of culture in all our lives. During his time in Lyon he took part in a programme bringing opera to prisons and at TMSO he leads the inclusive SaLaD Music Festival, as well as working with community organisations for people with disabilities. In his new role in Brussels he will be part of an integration scheme for refugees. During the initial stages of the pandemic, he led ground-breaking research into the transmission of particles and the use of ventilation that meant that orchestras could get back to playing for audiences safely.
In 2017 he was awarded ‘Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ by French cultural minister Françoise Nyssen, adding to the prestigious Asahi Prize in January 2015, for his contribution to the development and progress of Japanese society.
https://www.kazushiono.com/

Mao FUJITA (Piano)

Born in Tokyo, Fujita was still studying at the Tokyo College of Music in 2017 when he took First Prize at the prestigious Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil in Switzerland, which first brought him to the attention of the international music community. He was also the Silver Medalist at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow where his special musical qualities received exceptional attention from the jury of leading musicians as well as Valery Gergiev, who has invited him on a number of international tours since; in Tokyo in 2019, he jumped in at two days’ notice to perform the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.2 with the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev to rapturous acclaim.In November 2021, Fujita signed an exclusive multi-album deal with Sony Classical International. The new partnership will see Fujita explore many facets of the repertoire across several releases, starting with an eagerly-anticipated studio recording of Mozart’s complete Piano Sonatas, planned for release in Autumn 2022.

Program

Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor, op.15

Program Notes
Dvořák: Symphony No.7 in D minor, op.70

Program Notes

Brahms: Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor, op.15

Ⅰ Maestoso
Ⅱ Adagio
Ⅲ Rondo: Allegro non troppo

Johannes Brahms: Born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died in Vienna, April 3, 1897

　Brahmsʼs First Piano Concerto grew out of his initial attempt, at the age of twenty, to write a symphony. Originally the work was conceived as a four-movement sonata for two pianos, but Brahms declared that “even two pianos are not quite enough for my needs.” So, with the help of his friend Julius Grimm, Brahms tried to turn the sonata into a symphony. His difficulty with the orchestration led to a compromise suggested by Grimm: a piano concerto. The original Maestoso and Adagio movements were retained as the first and second movements of the concerto, and a new rondo-finale was written. Brahms finished the first version of the complete concerto in 1858, and the premiere took place the following year in Hanover with the composer at the piano and his friend Joseph Joachim (the famous violinist) on the podium.
　The concerto is among the most grandiose and majestic ever written, and at nearly fifty minutes in length, one of the longest as well. The piano part is prodigiously difficult, though it often becomes closely woven into the orchestral fabric, where it loses its soloistic role. Hans von Bülow called this concerto a “symphony with piano obbligato.” The point was overstated, of course, but the orchestraʼs importance in the concerto far exceeds that of many nineteenth-century concertos, where the orchestra functions as a mere backdrop for a flashy virtuoso soloist. These qualities helped ensure that the concerto would be received with response ranging from cool to outright rejection. From the viewpoint of the twenty-first century, we can nod in silent appreciation when Abraham Veinus writes: “The currents set in motion by Wagner and Liszt governed the last tide that washed upon the modern world. 　As nineteenth-century music rolled to its denouement, it carried Brahms with it as an aloof and disinterested passenger, regarded by the respectful as a learned iconoclast and by the impatient as a bewhiskered anachronism. The works of Brahms are the tremendous and impassioned utterances of a prophet with no future to predict, with only the splendors of the past to recreate and humbly worship.”
　Although Brahmsʼs music evokes images of towering strength and monumentality, it is worth noting that, with the exception of an extra pair of horns, his orchestra for this concerto is no larger than that for Mozartʼs Overture to The Marriage of Figaro or for Beethovenʼs First Symphony, both composed well over half a century earlier: two each of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet and timpani, plus the normal string section.
　The opening is one of the most famous in the entire concerto repertory. The arresting impact of thundering timpani and the stormy turbulence of the first theme immediately proclaim the broad symphonic sweep, the dark passion and the elemental grandeur of this movement. In his biography of Brahms, Walter Niemann wrote: “Never before, not even in Beethoven, has any instrumental concerto struck such a wild note of passion and revolt, indeed of demonic terror, as this first movement.” The wonderfully serene, even devotional mood of the Adagio movement provides just the contrast needed for the drama of the first. The finale, a rondo movement, is, like the first, built on a massive scale out of rugged, dramatic materials and sweeping musical lines.
Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.
　

Dvořák: Symphony No.7 in D minor, op.70

Ⅰ Allegro maestoso
Ⅱ Poco adagio
Ⅲ Scherzo: Vivace
Ⅳ Finale: Allegro

Antonín Dvořák: Born in Mühlhausen, Bohemia (now Nelahozeves, Czech Republic), September 8, 1841; died in Prague, May 1, 1904

　The New World may be the most famous of Antonín Dvořákʼs nine symphonies, but many consider the Seventh in D minor to be his greatest. The composer himself had no small opinion of this symphony, and succeeded in doubling the initial price offered for it by his publisher Simrock. It is hardly surprising that the symphony turned out so well, for Dvořák was spurred on by several important factors.
　In 1884, the Royal Philharmonic Society of London conferred on him an honorary membership, in conjunction with which came a commission to write a new symphony. Dvořákʼs fame and international stature were by now considerable, and wanting to maintain this standing, he put his best effort into the work. He even stated that his intention was to write a symphony “which must be such as to shock the world.” London figured prominently in Dvořákʼs travels (1884 marked his third visit there), but he was a Bohemian nationalist at heart and wanted his music to bring fame and glory to his homeland. (The jaunty rhythmic pattern of the third movement is a splendid manifestation of the native blood coursing through his veins.) His ambition to do his absolute best was also stimulated by the Third Symphony of Brahms, which Dvořák considered the finest symphony of recent years. Dvořákʼs new symphony was written in Prague in the short space of three months. The world premiere was given by the London Philharmonic on April 22, 1885 with the composer conducting. Dvořák wrote to Simrock that “it had an exceptionally brilliant success,” a view upheld in the press.
　The Seventh is the darkest, most intense and most serious of Dvořákʼs symphonies. A sense of inner tragedy and reserved strength pervades throughout, a quality perceived right in the ominous opening theme in the lower range of the violas and cellos. This theme almost immediately shows its capacity for spawning new material; following a quiet echo in the clarinets, the theme almost continually transforms itself, metamorphosing into a jagged twisting affair, then into a lyrically sweeping motif for the solo horn before culminating in a magnificent outburst for the full orchestra. All this may be considered the first theme group, which is contrasted with the more pastoral second, a gracefully flowing theme in B-flat major presented by the woodwinds. From these ideas Dvořák then continues to weave a tautly constructed movement, arranging the fragments and pieces in a mosaic of superb symphonic logic.
　The slow movement opens with an exquisite passage of idyllic charm, scored for woodwind quartet and harmonized like a Bach chorale. The mood of other-worldly serenity pervades much of the movement, though there are occasional emotional disturbances. Donald Francis Tovey found passages of this movement to equal those of some slow movements in Beethoven and Bruckner symphonies in their profound and lofty thought.
　The Scherzo is propelled by an irresistible dance rhythm, which manages to be simultaneously graceful and powerful. As an added attraction to this intriguing rhythmic impetus, a flowing counterpoint in the lower strings is often present as well (it is first heard in the opening bars). The relentless momentum and dramatic intensity are temporarily checked during the Trio, which is marked by a relaxed, playful and folksy character.
　Unlike Beethovenʼs Fifth or Brahmsʼs First, this symphony does not trace the journey from a gloomy, turbulent beginning to a triumphant conclusion. The mood of dark tragedy and restless defiance continues to the end. Along the way the finale encompasses moments of passionate lyricism, fearsome resolve and darkly burnished sonorities. Otakar Šourek described this symphony as “a composition of monumental proportions, unified in all its parts, bold in design, of material without flaw or fracture, a composition which is one of the greatest and most significant symphonic compositions since Beethoven.”
　Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.
　

【Soloist Encore】（10/7up）
Grieg：Lyric Pieces Book III Erotikk op.43-5
　（Mao FUJITA, Piano）

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